Thursday, March 11, 2010

BPA/BPH

I've been reading all this about BPH/BPA plastic bottles and got to thinking about our experience in raising our daughter who was born in 1971. Plastic bottles were available then, but we just didn't feel right about using them, common sense said that if plastic got hot maybe some of it would migrate into the bottle's contents! So we used glass bottles. Similarly, with the plastic and whatever they were made of diapers, who knew what was in them? So we used cotton diapers. When Julia was carrying, and breast feeding Sarah, she never used any drugs - by drugs I mean painkillers or anything - not even an aspirin! If she had a headache, she had a headache, that was it. She never took even one pill or one alcoholic drink the whole time. We put as many of our chemicals, cleaning materials, etc, as possible in the garage away from delicate little lungs. Microwave ovens were big then, but I wouldn't have one in the house with a baby. It was years before we used one, and I'm glad we didn't, I think they may be safer now, but there was a time when there was a scare about some of them leaking microwaves and working for the British Navy, as I had some years before, I knew what microwaves could do to you. Over the years we gave baby Sarah as few medications as possible. I would rather she had a headache than dose it up with pills. Sure the headache would be gone a few hours after the pills were taken, but it was also gone in a few hours without the use of pills!! And who knows what those pills did? After all a headache is normal and natural, we all get them and they usually go away. The chemicals and drugs in the pills are not normal. Why put stuff into your body that has no business being there? (The drug companies spend BILLIONS convincing us that we cannot get by for even a day without their expensive concoctions. And we buy it, and them.)Julia continued to work while pregnant, and continued to be vigilant about any danger to our new baby, so much so that when a pest company arrived to spray the offices of the company that she was worked for, she told her boss that they would have to do it overnight or at the weekend or she would have to leave. They, the pest company, and management, assured her that it was safe. But she left immediately. She was certainly vindicated there!I guess my only point here is that a person's or a parent's common sense should be given free rein when something as precious as your child is concerned. If in doubt about something, err on the side of caution. If you have even the slightest doubt about whether something might not be right, don't do it. Nowadays, with the availability of the Internet, it is easier to check something out than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but it was worth the extra effort then and it is worth it now and always will be. Today there are thousands of new chemicals being introduced to our environment and our bodies every year, almost none of them are tested at all! Use your instincts! With so many new chemicals coming along it is harder and harder to avoid them - so we need to be be ever more vigilant.Remember, if in doubt, don't. Or at least check it out thoroughly.

P.S. I just read that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) tests for 116 chemicals, but they estimate the number of chemicals out there that we are exposed to at 80,000 Yes, that number was eighty thousand! I would say we don't know the effects of by far the majority of the chemicals that we are exposed to every day, and the number of those chemicals increase every single day, and the new ones are not tested either. Incidentally we don't even know if the ones that have been tested are safe! We only know that they have been tested - not that they are safe!!Enjoy your chemical soup.